


Turpitude - Bloody Version

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1145]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, M/M, Tony loses it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 22:10:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16627337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Tony wakes up covered in blood and surrounded by dead bodies. What's worse he keeps having flashbacks of killing them. What is wrong with this picture? Is it an alternate reality? Did he really kill all these people? Gibbs! Gibbs is buried under the bodies, but alive. Can Tony and Gibbs figure out what happened? Or will they die trying? Can Tony even live with killing so many people?





	1. Blood Everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 06/19/2002 for the word [turpitude](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2002/06/19/turpitude).
> 
> turpitude  
> vile, shameful, or base character; depravity.  
> a vile or depraved act.
> 
> This is for prompt #1 of the June 2018 Five Prompts Challenge located [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/143408.html).

Blood everywhere. Where had it come from? What happened? Tony slowly stood up feeling the blood sluice down him as he moved. 

He cringed. He hated the feeling of being covered completely in blood. It didn’t happen often, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’d woken up surrounded by a ton of bodies due to a serial killer trying to claim him as a victim. 

Tony quickly took stock of where he was and what he was working with. As he thought the serial killer was long gone. There seemed to be no one here, but him. Just what had he gotten himself into this time?

Groan.

Who was that? Was someone else here? 

Groan.

He was watching the pile of bodies near him this time and saw them move as he heard the groan. Was someone alive down there? With his protect instincts in full force, Tony immediately started moving the dead bodies out of the way looking for where the groaning was coming from. 

Gibbs! Tony shook Gibbs shoulder trying to wake him up. How was Gibbs here?

Wait… Where was here? What happened? Tony couldn’t remember worth crap. 

A sensory memory of his knife sliding through someone’s rib cage flashed through his mind. What the heck? What was going on here? 

Had he killed someone? Was his injury just the start of what pissed the serial killer off? Was he at fault for all these deaths somehow?

Smack. “Stop it, DiNozzo. Focus.”

Gibbs! “Boss? What happened?”

Gibbs shook his head. “You tell me, DiNozzo.”

“I don’t know, boss. Clearly, we survived whatever happened here.”

“That’s not what you were thinking just a minute ago.”

“Boss!” Tony protested.

Gibbs just glared until Tony sighed and gave in, “I have a memory of my knife sliding through skin like it was made of soft cheese. I don’t know why. It’s probably just my imagination running away with me.”

Gibbs head slapped Tony again. “Rule 5, Tony. “

Tony nodded. Don’t waste good. “Got it, boss.”

“We’ll figure it out, Tony.”

Tony nodded, pulling himself together. He couldn’t afford to indulge in what ifs around Gibbs. He needed to be focused on the case or whatever this was.

“Do you remember anything, boss?”

“Just that I had been captured, I think.” Gibbs face tightened up, the muscles tensing as a confused and frustrated expression spread across his face.

“Captured? Where are the people who captured you?”

“If I’m not mistaken, these are them.” Gibbs pointed at the dead bodies surrounding them.

“What? But how? Did you use your super secret Marine skills on them boss?”

“No, Tony. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a chance to.”

“Then what happened?”

”I don’t know.” Gibbs sounded a little lost. 

That was just wrong. Gibbs shouldn’t sound lost like that. Pasting on an overly cheerful smile, Tony announced, “We’ll figure out what happened boss. Just the two of us, like it used to be.”

“The team, DiNozzo?”

“I don’t know, boss. I don’t think they were amongst the bodies.”

Smack. “Call the team, DiNozzo.”

“On it, boss.”

Patting his pockets, Tony frowned when he didn’t find his phone, “Uh… Boss? Do you have your phone?”

Gibbs crossed his arms and glared at Tony.

“I’ll take that as a no. Guess we won’t be calling for backup until we find a working phone, then.”

“You think, DiNozzo?”

Tony nodded, mostly to himself and looked around again. This time to figure out what they had to work with. Though they really should decide whether they wanted to stay here, someone could come back, or whether they wanted to leave and try to make their way back to the Navy Yard.

The thought of rooting through the bloody corpses’ pockets filled Tony with disgust, but he’d done worse in his time. College hadn’t been easy to pay for after Senior disowned him, after all. Taking a deep breath Tony bent down to start gathering anything useful from the dead bodies.

“DiNozzo!” Gibbs shouted.

Tony immediately straightened back up, “Yes, boss.”

“Leave it. You’ll only contaminate the crime scene further.”

“Yes, boss. On your six.”

They stepped out into the blinding sunlight and Tony immediately closed his eyes against the bright light. Gibbs continued walking out like the difference between the dark and bloody room and the brilliant sunbeams was nothing. Tony didn’t know how Gibbs could ignore the sun so easily. 

Opening his eyes up slowly, squinting against the light, Tony followed Gibbs. He hoped his boss knew where he was going. Tony hadn’t even had a chance to figure out where they were due to the evil light. Gibbs stopped next to a van with a smiley sticker on it.

The smiley stuck out to Tony because the rest of the van was amazingly dirty, but somehow the spot where the sticker was stayed relatively clean. It didn’t make sense to Tony. Tony blinked as Gibbs walked around to the driver’s side door and opened the car door.

Apparently, whoever left this vehicle here didn’t lock the door. Tony scrambled for the passenger seat as Gibbs’ set about hotwiring the car since who knew where the keys were. Tony definitely didn’t want to be left behind to explain all the dead bodies by himself, even if he was getting more and more flashes of what felt like memories involving him in numerous gruesome ways mutilating the bodies that were now on the floor, dead.

Lost in the flashbacks, Tony jerked into his seatbelt as the van rocketed off unexpectedly due to Gibbs’ foot on the gas pedal. Apparently, Gibbs had succeeded in hot wiring the car without Tony realizing he had.

The more Tony saw in his daydreams, memories, flashbacks, or whatever they were, the more Tony worried that he was turning into a monster. Everything he was seeing in his mind disturbed him more and more at the just plain turpitude that he’d never realized he had inside him. 

Wishing he could forget about the memory track flashing in front of his eyes, Tony tried to get himself back on track and focused on the present. “Where are we, boss?”

Gibbs grunted as he turned the van sharply and careened around another corner.

“Right. I’ll figure it out.” Tony turned his attention to the street signs flying by as he tried to figure out what area they were in. Were they still in DC? Tony hoped they were. 

It would be so much easier if they were relatively close to NCIS headquarters and could just head back and direct people back to the crime scene. Tony heard the sound of sirens behind them and turned around to see a police car chasing them. The van immediately sped up in response. 

Tony could feel what felt like his heart thudding into his chest. Why weren't they slowing down? They weren’t the bad guys. “Boss?”

“You have your badge, DiNozzo?”

Tony patted down his pockets before shaking his head, “Nope.”

“Then we can’t afford to be pulled over as they would have no reason to believe we’re who we say we are.” Gibbs pressed his foot down harder on the gas pedal, darting in and out of cars and taking random turns to try and throw the police car off their tail.

Tony didn’t like it, but he knew Gibbs was right. Cops would toss them in jail for stealing the car at the very least and ask questions later. He couldn’t help feeling like he’d just taken a bite out of a lemon as bitterness with a touch of self-loathing filled him at the thought that both Gibbs and him were reduced to acting like criminals until they figured out what had really happened.

While not actually a Law Enforcement Officer, they were still supposed to enforce and uphold the laws not break them. It was one thing when you were undercover and trying to gain the bad guys’ trust so that you could take them all down later. It was another thing entirely to basically be running for your life because you couldn’t explain what had happened and had no proof that you were an NCIS agent.

Oh, they could have gotten someone to contact NCIS to confirm who they were, but that would have taken time that they didn’t have. Better for them to get to a place where they could hunker down, contact the team and figure out what the heck happened to them. It sucked that they had to leave the crime scene so quickly. 

There was probably a bunch of evidence there that would help them figure out what was going on. Hopefully, whoever found the scene called the authorities and proper crime scene protocol was followed so that no evidence went missing or got damaged, but Tony knew that was basically a pipe dream. He only hoped that they hadn’t made a mistake in leaving the crime scene and running from the police officer(s) following them.

He didn’t trust that the police officers would help them if they turned themselves in, but now it would appear like they were guilty of something. Though, if Tony’s flashbacks were at all real, it was possible that he, at least, really was guilty of cold blooded murder. He didn’t like that thought, at all.

He’d always known he had a dark side to him. It was impossible to grow up the way he had without finding out some things about yourself that you didn’t like, but he’d never realized that he could be so depraved as to kill what was probably at least 20 people. He struggled to believe that the perpetrator was really him, but he already hated himself a little bit for there being even a possibility that he was the one who had killed them all.

The motion from Gibbs’ driving of the van wasn’t helping any either. He could feel his stomach starting to turn and was just glad that he didn’t have motion sickness like McGeek did. If he had, he’d have already thrown up all over himself. 

As it was, he was starting to feel slightly queasy. Gibbs slammed on the brakes and Tony was tossed against his seat back unexpectedly due to the drastic decrease in speed. Before Tony could even ask why they’d stopped, Gibbs climbed out of the van and nodded his head towards a bar a little ways away. 

Tony followed Gibbs out of habit. He had no idea if they were walking into a trap or what the plan was. Hopefully, Gibbs had a plan because Tony certainly didn’t. Entering the bar, Tony immediately did his best to blend into the shadows, thankful that in the dark of the bar the blood on their clothes didn’t stand out.


	2. The Arrest

Tony elbowed Gibbs to get his attention, after spotting Fornell in the corner. 

Gibbs brushed Tony’s elbow away. “This is Fornell’s preferred bar. Let’s go.” 

Gibbs led the way. Tony followed after Gibbs bemused. He didn’t really trust Fornell to not arrest them on sight. 

After all, Fornell had accused him of murder twice already in previous years. The man clearly had it out for him despite being friends with Gibbs. Still Tony trusted Gibbs to know the best move and if he thought talking to Fornell was their best move Tony would follow him. 

He'd still keep an eye out for a double cross from Fornell, but he would follow Gibbs even if it was to his death. Tony wondered at the cause for Fornell’s loss of color. The man's face had blanched faster than he'd seen in a while and definitely not something two known federal agents warranted especially since they shouldn't have been identified as the ones on the run, yet. 

Something wasn't adding up and Tony knew Gibbs sensed it as well. They were both on alert now as they neared Fornell. 

"What are you doing here?" Fornell hissed.

"What do you mean?" Gibbs growled.

"You're supposed to be undercover."

"Err... What?" Tony couldn't help questioning in confusion. 

Fornell glanced between the both of them in surprise, "What? Did you both hit your head?"

"Something like that." Tony equivocated, having zero desire to explain the whole thing to Fornell.

"What? Seriously?"

"Yeah." Gibbs confirmed.

Fornell glanced around the bar before shaking his head. "Not here."

"About that..." Tony trailed off wondering if the van would even still be in the parking lot. They hadn't been in the bar very long, but it was a wanted vehicle. At least, the police had been behaving like it was. 

Despite Gibbs less than stellar driving as far as most people were concerned, he hadn't actually done anything for the cops to chase them when they'd started after them. Tony figured that the van had been left by one of the people in the pile of dead bodies that had captured Gibbs or something. He still didn't know how the whole undercover thing fit in, but if Fornell didn't want to talk here they'd need to figure out a better location to talk.

"Oh god. What did you do?"

"Nothing." Tony rebutted a bit defensively.

Gibbs shook his head. "We'll explain once we're secure."

Tony nodded in agreement if they were supposed to be undercover their tale probably shouldn't be told where anyone could overhear. Of course, salvaging the undercover op might be a lost cause at this point in time depending on what their original goal was.

Tony still didn't remember anything about going undercover. Nothing made sense anymore. He'd stopped losing time to the flashbacks, but the pictures in his head hadn't gone away and he still didn't know how to make sense of what he'd been seeing.

"Let's just say that our transportation is precarious at best," Tony muttered finally, needing to get out of this public space before something happened that they regretted.

Fornell shook his head and raised his eyes heavenward, "Fine. Follow me. We'll figure out better transportation later."

Fornell stalked towards his car. Tony and Gibbs following along behind him. All of them on alert for anything suspicious or at least Tony assumed Fornell was on alert as well. He knew Gibbs would be and Tony definitely was.

Tony wanted to relax his guard once they climbed into Fornell's generic FBI issued vehicle, but something felt off still. He didn't know what it was, but until he figured it out and whether it was really a threat or not he couldn't relax. As they approached a hotel, Tony stiffened. This wasn't right. 

"Fornell..." A hint of warning crept into Tony's voice as something told him that they were approaching a set up. 

Gibbs responded to the tone in Tony's voice by unfastening his seatbelt for a quick getaway. 

"Relax. No one is going to hurt you."

"Yeah, right. Tell that to someone you haven't arrested multiple times for no reason."

Gibbs turned his glare on Fornell as it became obvious the man was keeping something from him.

"You were supposed to be dead. They just want to make sure you haven't gone off the reservation."

That turn of phrase made Tony pause just a bit. They were supposed to be dead? Had Gibbs' capture and whatever had happened in that room been an intentional attack on their life?

Now, more than ever Tony wanted to hustle Gibbs out of this meet and talk somewhere just the two of them. Bracing himself for the worst, Tony stopped or more accurately flew backwards as a flying Abby tackled him with a hug. 

"Abbs? What's going on?" Tony's nose wrinkled in confusion.

"We thought you were dead." Abby wailed. 

Tony looked around at the others who were gathering around him and furtively trying to check on Gibbs without seeming like it. "Uh... What's going on, guys?"

"We were called out to the scene along with the FBI due to the nature of your joint operation. We found all the dead bodies. We were sure you were among them, though, Ducky hasn't had a chance to confirm that due to the number of bodies we found," Tim explained.

"We're fine, guys." Tony protested, exchanging glances with Gibbs.

“You don’t look fine.”

Tony really wished he knew what had happened in the warehouse. None of the pieces he had were adding up to a full puzzle and based on Gibbs' body language he felt the same. Ducky and Jimmy weren't present, he assumed that they were trying to make sense of the bodies that had been left behind in the warehouse. 

Abby, Tim, and Bishop were all there along with Fornell and even Sacks. Though, Sacks was holding back and not joining in the well wishes. Why had Fornell said not here if he was only going to lead them to the rest of their team. 

Abby's explanation of believing they were dead felt too pat. Tony wanted to know what was really going on. Was this some crazy dream? 

What undercover operation were they supposedly on? Why was no one discussing strategies to recover the undercover operation? Had their death been intended as the end to the undercover operation?

It felt like a trap, but Tony couldn't for the life of him figure out how it was a trap. "Uh. Don't you guys have work to do? And Fornell said something about an undercover operation?"

"Later." Fornell shook his head. "We don't know how badly this will affect the family we're investigating."

"Drugs?"

Fornell gave an aborted head shake. "No."

Tony couldn't help wondering why Vance and whoever was interested in the undercover operation on the FBI side weren't present currently. Were there cameras watching them? Tony turned around looking for surveillance of any kind. 

Gibbs tilted his head in a signal to drop it. Had he seen something? Tony would really like someone to just explain everything. 

Distracted with his thoughts especially as a flashback to him slicing open another body flashed through his mind, Tony startled when cuffs clipped around his wrist. "Wha?" He protested, yanking his arms ineffectually as the cuffs had already locked into the closed position.

"I knew you were the one all along," Sacks announced.

"Someone want to fill me in?" Tony looked at his coworkers. The people he'd thought of as his friends in confusion as they all shook their heads no, even Gibbs.

"You're coming with us, DiNozzo." Sacks dragged him over to Fornell's van not caring to be gentle about it.

Tony couldn't help a sense of dread as none of the NCIS agents did anything to stop him. What was going on? Why weren't Abby, Tim, or Bishop protesting his arrest?

For that matter, why was Gibbs just going along with it? Gibbs had always been the one that had seen worth in him. He shouldn't be just writing him off on someone else's word.

For that matter, how had Gibbs found out about whatever they were talking about. Gibbs had been with him the entire time. Had Gibbs been faking his lack of memory? 

"Would someone like to explain what's going on?" Tony demanded as Sacks locked him in the back of the van.

"We finally have the proof we need that you're the serial killer we've been investigating, DiNozzo."

"Serial killer? What? I'm an NCIS agent. Not a serial killer."

"Yep. It gave you the perfect cover for the longest time. It wasn't easy gathering the evidence needed to prove you've been killing people for pretty much the entire time you worked at NCIS."

"What proof is this? I haven't killed anyone." Tony protested, his stomach rolling as he remembered the flashbacks he'd been having. Maybe he'd killed more people than he realized. 

"You'll find out once we get to interrogation." Sacks lips curved upwards in an evil smirk.

This would make the third time the FBI had arrested him for something he was innocent of. He couldn't help wondering if he should consider suing the FBI for defamation of character over all these false arrests. The idea that he’d been using his NCIS agent status to hide his serial killings was preposterous. 

Had the whole world gone crazy? The memories, his friends, his boss... How had everyone turned against him? Did no one believe in him, anymore?

Then he had no more time to think as he was shoved into a chair in an interrogation room and Sacks sat across from him, tossing picture after picture of dead bodies at him. 

"Who are these people?"

"Don't you recognize them? You killed them."

"I've never seen these people before in my life."

"Stop faking it, DiNozzo. No one is falling for your playboy act anymore. We know you're really a psychopath. McGee hacked your real results of the psychology tests required for all federal agents."

"Seriously. I have no idea what you're talking about." Tony slouched in the chair trying to pretend he didn't have a care, but inside he couldn't help freaking out just a little. He knew he hadn't done what they were accusing him of, but he was afraid that he'd killed a number of people in the room that he'd woken in with Gibbs. With what he was being accused of now, if any evidence was found at that crime scene pointing to him, he was sure to be found guilty. 

It wouldn't matter that he hadn't killed the others that they were blaming him for. They wouldn't believe him if they could prove he'd killed at least some of the people at the most recent crime scene. Tony needed to get out of here. 

He needed to prove his innocence. Clearly no one else was going to bother. He couldn't believe that after 12 years Gibbs would turn on him.


	3. The Mystery

The interrogation continued and Tony grew more and more terrified the more supposed evidence they had that they revealed. It was worse than the last time and that had been pretty bad since they'd had actual DNA evidence that had pointed to him. Abby had thought she was going crazy when everything kept pointing to Tony that time.

This time, though, she didn't seem concerned at all. She had waved cheerily as Tony was cuffed and taken into custody. Had she been replaced by a pod? 

Had Gibbs been replaced by a pod? Had he somehow ended up in Body Snatchers? He slouched further in his seat, putting on one of his more annoying smirks as he grasped desperately at his mask not wanting Sacks or Fornell to know how close to home some of their accusations were hitting.

He wanted to cry out in relief by the time that they finished and shoved him into a cell to wait. Would anyone even visit him this time? After that strange meeting he wondered if he'd see anyone while in this cell.

Last time, Gibbs had visited him and brought pizza to cheer him up, but he suspected that wouldn't happen this time. Somehow everyone had been turned against him and he didn't understand it.

McGee had hacked his real psychological results? What did that even mean? Had someone been falsifying his scores in order to keep him at NCIS?

What reason would someone have to do that? For that matter, why hadn't he passed them in the first place? His mind swirled with more questions than answers. 

He really wished the team were helping him prove his innocence. He felt so alone, right now, but his face still had an annoying smirk pasted across it as he knew these cells had cameras in them and he wasn't about to give anyone watching him the satisfaction of seeing him sweat. He had no idea who would be trying to discredit him.

Well, besides Agent Sacks who clearly was helping whoever was trying to ruin him. Normally, that would be a bonus in Tony's favor since Sacks had a tendency to mess up and miss things, but right now it just felt like another nail in his coffin. He needed to be able to work the case himself if he were going to prove his innocence, but he couldn't do that from a cell.

Unfortunately, if the team wasn't helping him, escaping from the cell wouldn't be easy either. He was pretty sure they wouldn't let him even have copies of all the evidence to go through to try and build a case. It was required by law that they allow him access to copies, but as they hadn't even asked him if he wanted a lawyer they clearly weren't sticking to the law.

It was within his rights to demand a lawyer and he considered doing so, but he really didn't like lawyers anymore than Gibbs did. Plus, he didn't want to win through mistrial. He wanted to win because he was clearly innocent. 

He wanted to be able to sue the FBI for defamation of character when he got out of here. He wasn't sure if he actually would, but he was really tired of being accused of murders he didn't commit. This time they'd taken it even further and accused him of being a serial killer and apparently had enough evidence that they'd managed to sway Gibbs without Gibbs ever leaving Tony's sight.

Tony couldn't help thinking how horribly fucked he must be. At the moment, he couldn't see anyway out of this. He only hoped that something would happen to change things in his favor soon. 

Actually being able to take a shower and change his clothes would be a plus. He didn't really like being covered in blood, his own or other people's either one. He wondered if they would let him take a shower or if this was yet another ploy to get him off balance in some manner. 

Did seeing him covered in blood make them feel less guilty about convicting him for crimes he was innocent of? He really wished he could remember whatever undercover operation they had been talking about. He couldn't help feeling like that missing knowledge was the piece to the puzzle that would make everything click into place.

Having nothing better to do, he'd been wracking his brain all day trying to remember the undercover operation that everyone seemed to know about that he had no knowledge of. He'd yet to remember a single thing. Either the undercover operation was all a big cover up and never actually existed or he'd well and truly blocked it from his mind for some reason.

He didn't like either of those options. One meant that not only had his coworkers, teammates, friends lied to him, but so had Gibbs. Gibbs who held honesty and loyalty and the quest for truth above all other qualities and needs including pesky things like sleep and food. Speaking of food, Tony groaned as his stomach rumbled. 

They'd yet to feed him in this cell. That undoubtedly wasn't helping his brain power. He didn't even have access to the granola bars and other nutrition bars that he kept in his desk to help him through the long hours Gibbs expected them to work. 

Still he wasn't quite ready to make a scene to try and get attention. For some reason, he felt like that was what they wanted from him. Like that would prove that he wasn't fit to be an agent or that he was crazy.

He really wasn't sure what the end goal of this was. Of course, it was difficult to figure out motivation if you didn't know who was behind it all. He'd been trying to figure that out too.

If this was all a plot to discredit him and get him out of NCIS, who would benefit from it? Of course, no one had come to mind. He had enemies sure, but they were the come after him with a bat kind, not the play all sorts of crazy mind games kind. 

He couldn't think of anyone who would employ these kinds of tactics. It was driving him batty. If he weren't locked in an FBI cell with cameras watching him, he'd be actively trying to pull out his hair.

As it was, he simply sat on his hands to prevent himself from hitting the walls or pulling out his own hair. Eventually, he fell asleep. With all the thinking he'd been doing he'd exhausted his brain.

He glanced around his cell as he woke. He ignored Sacks standing in the doorway. He was sure the man had come to escort him to interrogation again and he wasn't interested in rushing that if he didn't need to.

He noticed something odd, but didn't want to draw attention to it, so followed Sacks for now. He'd investigate the bauble he'd seen when he was returned to his cell. The interrogation hadn't gotten any more interesting with a day's break.

Though this time Fornell had taken over instead of letting Sacks run it. Tony wasn't sure if that was significant or just an attempt at strategy. Either way, he ran his mouth as much as he could. 

He hoped annoying Fornell would get him some useful information, but so far he'd gotten nothing. Neither Sacks nor Fornell would tell him anything about this undercover operation that he'd supposedly been on. 

They were treating him like a common criminal. There was none of the federal agents stick together camaraderie that he'd gotten used to. That worried him more than anything else.

Vance had never liked him. Had Vance decided to take him out of the game in a more permanent way? That didn't make any sense.

Vance could just fire him if he wanted to get rid of him. He didn't have to resort to these drastic measures. Every idea he came up with as to who could be behind this made less sense than the previous.

As the FBI laid out the evidence they had against him, Tony started to despair. None of the evidence made any sense. He knew he hadn't been where the evidence placed him, but he couldn't prove it.

How did you prove a negative? They hadn't even asked him for an alibi. What kind of investigation was being run here?

He felt like he was getting snowed, but why would Fornell be going along with it? He wasn't the nicest guy, but he didn't lock people up for no reason either. Could this be revenge from Ziva somehow?

He didn't know it at the time, but he'd realized rather quickly that Gibbs had chosen him over Ziva. Ziva had always had a screw loose, but he didn't think that she would do something like this. However, he couldn't figure out who would either. It smacked of Ari's mind games with Gibbs, but Ari was long dead. 

Or at least, he was supposed to be. Maybe he wasn't dead. Maybe he'd just been biding his time.

Though, why he would be targeting Tony instead of Gibbs made no sense. Not that Tony would wish this on Gibbs, but he really wished that something would start to make sense. He wasn't going to give up without a fight, but he would dearly love to know exactly what he was fighting against.

Currently, it seemed like beating the plague would be easier than unraveling this mystery. At least, then he'd known what he was up against. Of course, he'd also had Gibbs by his side then. 

That was another mystery that didn't make sense. Gibbs had always backed him. He'd even handed the team over to him when he "retired" to Mexico. 

The idea that Gibbs had just decided he was an evil serial killer didn't make any sense to him. Either someone had been planting this line of thinking in Gibbs' head for a long time and Gibbs only now had the evidence to prove it or something else was going on. Perhaps something more sinister than the accusations against Tony and Gibbs was spending his time focusing on that, trusting Tony to handle his own messes.


	4. Has Everyone Gone Crazy?

Fornell finally tired of interrogating Tony and just getting smart aleck responses and returned him to his cell. Tony waited for things to quiet down in hopes that the people watching the cameras would be too distracted to see what he was doing. Finally deciding to chance it, Tony turned around to face the corner and placed his back to the camera so that no one could see what he was doing and grabbed the shiny bauble that had caught his attention earlier.

Tony rolled it around in his hand it was too smooth to help him break out unless it was actually a bomb. He really hoped that someone hadn't left him a bomb. On the other hand, he was a bit mystified as to how this trinket had appeared in his cell.

It wasn't like a guard would just randomly leave him something to amuse himself with. Tony wasn't actually sure as to the purpose of the trinket. It's edges were rounded not a single rough edge anywhere to be found. Was someone trying to cheer him up and make him think he wasn't alone?

Or was this just a trick to lure him into a fall sense of security that everything would be ok? Did this bauble have something hidden inside of it that Tony needed to discover to understand it's true meaning? Tony didn't see anything that would open. 

It was just round, smooth, and glittery, the size and shape of the bouncy balls that he remembered kids playing with at boarding school. This was heavier and not at all bouncy, made of a silver substance or at least the outside appeared to be a metallic silver of some sort. 

Tony brought the round spherical thing up to eye level, so that he could take a closer look at it. That's when he noticed what looked to be marks that indicated it hadn't been intended to be a single bead. The connector had been cut off and the bead smoothed down, so that it wasn't obvious that it had originally been part of some kind of connected set.

Tony's mind immediately went to the gutter and he dropped the ball he was holding as the idea that it was once an anal bead flashed through his head. Of course, it was possible it was part of a Newton's cradle, but that made even less sense than anal bead. Gibbs could probably have done the work to separate the bead from whatever it belonged to.

It had certainly been done by someone with patience and an eye for quality like Gibbs had. Still Tony was no closer to figuring out why it was in his cell or how it got there. Now, the ball had rolled away, right between the cell bars.

Tony sighed and stretched his arm through the bars to reach for the silver sphere. He returned to his seat on the very uncomfortable stone bench and passed the metallic ball back and forth in his hands as he thought. He wondered if they would take him back to interrogation today or if he was done with the FBI until tomorrow.

The whole situation seemed wrong. Nobody was behaving as he expected and he just couldn't figure out what was going on. If he believed in all the science fiction mumbo jumbo, he would swear that he was in an alternate reality right now.

One where he really was a serial killer instead of an NCIS agent. Truthfully, with his father he could see how he could have easily turned into a serial killer if things had been different. Thwink.

Tony set the bead he'd been juggling down on the bench and turned towards whatever had made the sound as it hit the floor. At first, he didn't see anything, but he knew he'd heard something. Moving in the direction of the sound, Tony peered around looking for what had fallen. 

He finally spotted another silvery metallic sphere, this time a bit smaller than the first one. If they'd been the same size then maybe he would have believed they came from a Newton's cradle, but decreasing in size just made him think that they were anal beads. His face scrunching up in confusion, Tony picked up the second bead. 

Sitting back down on the bench, Tony put the new bead next to the first bead. He didn't know what to think about any of this. Where were these beads coming from?

Why had everyone been so quick to believe him of murder? Why did he see himself murdering people over and over again every time he closed his eyes? He knew he wasn't at the top of his game. 

How could he be with these memories or whatever they were? He really wished he understood what was going through Gibbs' mind. He could sort of understand the others.

They hadn't exactly taken well to him being team lead when Gibbs had retired, but Gibbs had always had faith in him and trusted him. He really didn't understand what was going on with Gibbs. Then these beads... Were they a message to him?

If so, what kind of message? Tony went back to staring at the beads. There had to be a hidden inscription or something inside of them. If only Tony could figure out how to find the message.

He really didn't have much to work with. He still hadn't been allowed to shower. The blood had dried and turned black on his clothes. 

The stuff wasn't sticky any longer, but it was hard and stiff, even a bit crusty. Tony had uncomfortable images of dried come combined with the beads that may or may not be anal beads flashing through his mind. He wished his mind would concentrate on figuring a way out of this for him instead of fantasizing about things that would never happen with Gibbs.

Banging the 2 spheres together in frustration, Tony's eyes grew wide as one slid seamlessly into the other. What the heck? Peering closer at the ball, Tony realized that there must be some sort of magnet inside each of the spheres. 

It wasn't a very strong one. You would never guess that it was there unless you did what he'd done and banged the beads together. The mechanics were impressive he hadn't seen the seam lines even when he looked closely, specifically searching for them.

Of course, that didn't really bring him any closer to figuring out what was going on. It wasn't the easiest to get the smaller ball out of the bigger one, but Tony finally managed it. Now, that he understood how the mechanism worked, he played with it.

He explored opening both balls, but neither of them revealed any hidden messages or anything useful. In the end he set them both aside. It was an amusing toy, but that was all that it was. He needed to focus on getting out of here. 

He didn't see how a couple of balls that could fit inside each other would help with anything. It wasn't like they were big enough to hold much in the way of useful items. In fact, most things wouldn't even fit inside them. 

It reminded him of those Russian dolls that all fit in each other only in anal bead form, but that didn't help him figure out anything. Unless Russian was a clue somehow. He knew a few Russians that would be happy to get rid of him.

They were all rather straightforward in their hatred, however. Plus, most of them hated Gibbs a lot more than they hated Tony. Maybe this had been a plot to kill or capture Gibbs and Tony had stumbled into the middle of it and stopped it, so now they were framing him for it?

No. That didn't make any sense either. Tony wanted to scream in frustration, but instead he took to softly tossing the balls at the wall and watching them roll back towards him. They didn't bounce well at all.

In the back of his mind, he couldn't help feeling that their inability to bounce was actually a clue, but he didn't know how it could be. Falling asleep, Tony couldn't help wishing that this was all a crazy dream and that he'd wake up in the middle of the bullpen having worked too many hours on a serial killing case. Alas, when he awoke he was greeted by the ever cheerful face of Ron Sacks and he knew that his wish had not come true.

"This is the day that we'll be able to completely book you for all the murders." Sacks announced with an eerily happy smile.

Tony shook his head. Only Sacks would be happy about putting an innocent man behind bars. Tony couldn't help being curious about what he meant though. 

He hadn't gone to trial, yet. As a federal agent, he should be deemed not a flight risk, so bail should have been offered as well. Still Tony didn't have much of a choice except to follow Sacks wherever he led.

First, they passed Fornell who handed Tony a pair of slippers. "You'll need these."

Tony blinked, accepting the slippers and staring after Fornell in confusion. The weirdness didn't end there. They passed McGee next, who handed Tony an actual book. 

"The art of war, Probie?"

McGee simply nodded his head and left. Tony couldn't help wondering if everyone had lost their collective minds. First, he's arrested and no one does anything to stop it.

Now, he's apparently going to be booked and tried for the murders, but everyone is giving him going away presents? WTF? Was he the only sane person left in the universe? 

Next up was Abby who gave him a great big hug before handing him a complete set of the anal beads with magnets in them like he'd found in his cell. "You know how these work, right?" Abby bounced excitedly on her toes.

Tony blinked and replied, "Yes, Abbs. I know how anal beads work."

Abby lightly smacked him on the arm. "Not anal beads, silly. They're keys."

"To what?" Tony's forehead wrinkled up in confusion. 

"You'll see." Abby winked.

Tony shot Abby a look. Abby just pushed him encouragingly towards the next person, who happened to be Bishop. Bishop handed him a set of prison jumpsuits.

"What do I need this for?"

"You'll find out. We're not allowed to tell you, sorry." Bishop shrugged and motioned him on. 

Tony looked for Gibbs. Everyone else had given him a gift, strange though they seemed. Where was Gibbs?

"Come on, DiNozzo." Sacks growled. "I don't have all day."

Tony startled, looking back at the others who nodded at him. Following Sacks with an odd feeling like he was going to his doom, Tony hoped that wherever he was going it would be better than the cell he'd been in. Though, Bishop's gift of a prison jumpsuit did nothing to make him feel better.


	5. The Rules

Sacks led him to another generic FBI van. He climbed in and wondered where he was being taken this time. He still had no clue what was going on. 

Shouldn't there be a trial before he got sentenced? He still hadn't even seen a lawyer. He wasn't sure if everyone except Gibbs seeing him off was a good or bad thing in all honesty. 

Sacks stopped the van in front of a high security prison. Well he had to wait for them to raise the gate to be more accurate. Tony didn't like the looks of this. 

Was this where Tony got lost in the system? Sacks parked the van and led Tony to the front of the building. Was Gibbs really going to let the FBI lose Tony like this after fighting so hard for Tony to stay on Gibbs' team?

It didn't make any sense. Nothing had made sense since he'd woken up covered in other people's blood. The phrase by Jack Kerouac, "and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was" stuck in Tony's mind.

Everyone was acting so odd that he didn't know who he was and whether he was the crazy one or if everyone else had gone insane around him. On top of that, he feared that he might be the kooky one. The visions he had of murdering so many people were so real that he just couldn't see how he'd be having them if he wasn't out of his mind. 

Gibbs! Tony breathed a sigh of relief at seeing Gibbs as they entered the prison. He wasn't just going to be vanished with no one caring what happened to him.

That still didn't explain what had happened to him or was still happening to him. He hadn't committed a crime to his knowledge. Though if those nightmares had any basis in reality, he might belong in a mental hospital. 

Also, what was Gibbs wearing? Was that a prison uniform? Had Gibbs been convicted of a crime as well? 

What in the world was happening? In what universe did it make sense for Gibbs to be in prison. The man had skirted the morally grey line a number of times, happening more frequently these last few years, but he did so much good work that no one would think the world was better with Gibbs behind bars.

Vance might joke about something like this, but he would never actually go through with it. What was happening? 

Sacks directed him to the check in counter. "New transfer."

Tony cursed under his breath. He really was going to be lost in the system. Even though Gibbs was here, if he was a prisoner himself, there was no way that they both weren't ending up lost in the system.

The blond smiled at Tony and nodded towards a door. "Bathroom is there, change into your jumpsuit and leave your other clothes in the bathroom. The rest of the items you can take with you."

Under normal circumstances, Tony would have flirted with the blond if for no other reason than to throw off suspicion. Right now, though he just didn't feel up to it. He was too confused and lost as to what was going on.

He followed the directions and changed into the ugly jumpsuit Bishop had given him, leaving his blood covered clothes in the bathroom. He slipped the slippers on and grabbed the book and keys as he exited the bathroom. While he was glad to be out of the blood crusted clothes, he really wished he knew what was going on.

A prison guard met him as he left the bathroom. "This way." 

Tony followed. What else could he do? Sure, he was a trained federal agent and could probably take the guard out if he wanted, but what purpose would that serve. 

It would only bring more guards down on him. Without knowing the situation not only with him, but with Gibbs too, Tony wasn't willing to chance it. So he followed the guard, surprised when he was led to the same cell Gibbs was in.

They were being roomed together? What kind of idiot decided on that. Tony could stage a coup to take over the world with Gibbs' help if they wanted to.

Tony shook his head and counted his good fortune. Whatever was going on would be over soon. With Gibbs by his side, they would figure it out. 

Despite wanting to know just exactly what was going on, Tony waited to ask any questions of Gibbs until the guard had gone. He wasn't sure what was happening. It couldn't be that he was actually in jail for crimes because then Gibbs wouldn't be there too. 

Tony watched Gibbs carefully, looking for any sign as to whether it was safe to speak. He didn't want to be the one that ruined whatever plan Gibbs had. Resorting to a few of their field hand signs, Tony asked if it was safe. 

Gibbs shook his head. Tony gulped. He made the sign for escape and tilted his head questioningly.

Gibbs still declined with a headshake. Unfortunately, there wasn't a field sign for wtf. However, if Gibbs said they weren't safe Tony wasn't sure what questions it would be ok to ask.

Tony and Gibbs stared at each other silently. Tony tried to ask the questions he wanted to know with his eyebrows. If Gibbs was answering them, Tony couldn't figure out what the answers were.

Finally, Gibbs sighed and reeled Tony in with a hand on his neck. They were close enough now that if Tony turned his head, his lips would hit Gibbs' lips. 

"Don’t forget. 40." Gibbs ordered, his lips practically touching Tony's ears.

Tony knew that to any outsiders they would look like two lovers reunited. Rule 40. If it seems like they’re out to get you they are. That helped a little, but still left way too many questions. "What's going on?"

"39."

There is no such thing as coincidence. Tony knew that rule well, but he was still lost as to what was going on. However, with that hint Tony started cataloging the things he’d been given. 

He wanted to ask more questions, but he had a feeling Gibbs was in the dark as much as he was. If Gibbs had been taken into custody they weren’t just after Tony. Tony still wasn’t sure what had happened with the team, Fornell, and Sacks to make it seem like it was just Tony being arrested, but they would have to get out of here first.

He had a prison jumpsuit. Nothing seemed special about it beyond that they’d clearly been put in prison. McGee had given him the art of war, a book well known for strategies. At the same time they had the keys or anal beads or whatever the fuck they were. 

The beads didn’t bounce. Did that mean that they were a clue telling Tony and Gibbs to stay put. Possibly to fake being lovers?

That wouldn’t be hard. Tony had been in love with Gibbs for years, but Gibbs didn’t return his feelings. Tony was positive of that. 

He’d seen Gibbs with too many women over the years for Gibbs to ever be interested in him. Gah! He was imagining having sex with his boss again. Why did his brain keep doing this to him?

“Are we looking for 44 men?” Tony tried to get a sense for what was really going on here, but nothing was adding up. It seemed like Gibbs had more knowledge than him, but maybe that was just Gibbs, who was always calm and in control no matter the situation.

Gibbs grunted. “Already killed some of them. 35 and 36 of them are left for sure.”

Always watch the watchers. If it feels like you’re being played, you probably are. Who had been watching?

Sacks. Throughout this whole thing, Sacks had been constantly watching him. Sacks was playing with them, but how? 

Was Fornell involved or was the stink just so big that Fornell couldn’t stop it and had to play along? Was there really an undercover operation or had that been a ploy that was being used to explain why Gibbs and Tony were where they were? Had they actually stumbled into something and just been at the wrong place and wrong time and not actually undercover?

"Bastards. I knew something was up, but I didn't expect this. Why can’t they just stay dead?" Tony grumbled.

Gibbs nodded. Tony wished that Gibbs could give him a full debriefing of whatever had happened to him and why he was here. Or for that matter why Tony kept feeling like he’d killed all the people they’d originally woken surrounded by.

Also, was no one concerned about his memory loss? Had Gibbs remembered or just been fed some line that seemed reasonable? It was so hard to figure out what was going on especially when they could only talk in code. 

Tony wished he’d actually picked up sign language like he’d been thinking about doing. At least then they’d be able to have a conversation and maybe Gibbs could clear some things up for Tony.


	6. Sacks' Plot

“Get up!” Sacks growled.

Sacks was back. “What’s going on?”

“Your execution. Well you and your fag lover.” Sacks spat in disgust.

He entered the cell and gestured for them to proceed him out. Tony glanced at Gibbs, who gave him the signal to play along. Maybe it was a mistake, but Tony couldn’t stop trusting Gibbs despite the fact that it wasn’t like Gibbs not to protest Tony being taken captive like he had.

Tony couldn’t help feeling like this was a set up, but he didn’t know for what. He wasn’t even sure if it was Sacks being set up or them. He also didn’t understand what the rest of the team was doing.

Had everyone really thought they were dead when Gibbs and Tony had showed up initially? Or had something been worked out ahead of time? If they'd thought he was dead, had Tony missed a signal that Gibbs caught? 

He'd not seen anything that would explain why Gibbs had gone along with this plan. However, clearly Gibbs wanted him to go along with this whatever it was. He couldn't help feeling like this upcoming interaction would go terribly. 

He was stuck on Sacks being behind this whole thing. He knew Sacks had never liked him and had taken great joy in arresting him, but he’d expected better of Fornell. Why was Gibbs going along with this? Why was Fornell?

Tony really didn't understand how this was supposed to work. Was Gibbs really planning to let Sacks kill them? For that matter how was Sacks here? 

Shouldn’t it be the prison warden’s job to bring them to the execution room? The fact that Gibbs had quoted rule 40 and 36 made Tony think that there were some suspicious behavior going on in the upper levels of perhaps more than one Federal Agency. Maybe there were even double agents, a mole, or just plain corrupt officials? 

Tony blinked as Sacks brought them to an empty room. Not even an electric chair. How was he going to kill them here?

“You should have died the first time. You messed everything up.” Sacks glared. “So now you are going to help fix it.”

“Fix what?” 

Sacks started to open his mouth and then paused. “I can’t tell you that, but you have no choice in the matter.”

Tony really wanted to roll his eyes. The guy was terrible with secrets. Tony was sure they could get what was really going on out of him. 

Pulling the string of anal beads out, Tony held them up to Gibbs making sure Sacks could see them as well, “One more fuck for the road?” Tony murmured.

“Can’t you wait?”

“Dude, who knows when we’ll get the chance again. You obviously wanted us dead the first time which means this may be our last chance before we die. Are you really so cruel as to not let us have a final fuck?”

“Fine. Whatever. Just get it over with.” Sacks crossed his arms, glaring at them. “We can’t get behind schedule.”

“Are you just going to stand there and watch? I didn’t know you were into that.” Tony winked.

Sacks snarled. “Make it fast. I’ll be right outside and there is no escape from this room, so don’t even try.”

“Oh don’t worry. We’ll be too busy.” Tony practically attacked Gibbs’ neck giving all the pretense of a lover desperate for a last fuck. 

Sacks shuddered and hurried out of the room, locking the door behind him.

Tony turned to Gibbs. “What is really going on?”

“We don’t know. Before they tossed me in here I was able to find out that I really had been captured. According to Tim, Bishop, and Abby no one knew who had captured me only that Sacks seemed shocked at how many people were dead when we were all called out to the crime scene.”

“So the undercover op?”

“No op as far as I can tell. Just a rescue you operation you ran on your own because Vance ordered you to stand down when I was captured.”

“Vance played me, didn’t he?”

“Yep. His hands were tied. Whatever is going on is really bad.”

Tony nodded. “Ok. We have to make this look good or Sacks will get suspicious.”

“Make sure you leave very visible marks. I’ll do the same.”

“I think we need to both have at least one anal bead inside us. I don’t know for sure, but I’m betting that Abby embedded tracking devices in them.”

Gibbs nodded in agreement and then they really started. Moaning, heavy breathing, screaming, scratches, bite marks, banging against the wall, all signs of a last desperate fuck and at the end they each slipped an anal bead inside the other’s ass. It struck Tony as strange that Gibbs was so good at faking this.

He did know Gibbs had done many undercover ops, which is basically what they were doing now as they tried to figure out what was really going on. Apparently, everyone had sold them out or at least were behaving like they were for the sole purpose of catching the people Sacks was working with. There was no way Sacks had done this on his own. 

Whoever had put Sacks up to this clearly had a plan to make Tony and Gibbs do their bidding, which Tony didn’t like at all. That meant they were someone with a lot of political power, most likely. Tony hated it when the ones at the top were corrupt. 

He was pretty sure that neither he nor Gibbs really knew the whole story of what they had ended up in the middle of. However, they were put together and slumped against the wall like a couple of sated people when Sacks poked his head back in. 

“Up!” Sacks snapped his fingers, encouraging them to hurry.

Gibbs and Tony slowly climbed to their feet giving all the symptoms of someone still a touch sated with weak muscles not able to move quickly. They were faking it since they hadn’t actually had sex, but they wanted Sacks to underestimate them. Sacks hustled them into an agency van.

Tony knew that was an even worse sign. If Sacks could use agency resources for this, it was going to be a mess no matter what. They drove for a long time. 

Sacks had left them in the back of the van while he’d taken the driver’s seat. Tony shook his head at Sacks. He hadn’t even tied them up. 

If it hadn’t been for Gibbs command to play along, they would have already jury rigged the lock on the back of the van and escaped. Whoever was behind this had some serious pull to be able to recover this quickly after losing twenty men and predict what Gibbs and Tony would do enough to have another trap set and waiting for them. Tony really hoped that Fornell was following orders and not actually part of whatever revenge scheme or whatever the fuck this was.

“I brought them as ordered.” Sacks announced to Latham.

Tony clutched his head and fell to the ground as all the memories came rushing back at the sight of Latham. He remembered the mess with EJ, how he’d been in the hospital and forgotten what had happened and Rachel had tried to help and Gibbs had tried to help. They thought they’d figured out what was going on. 

Gibbs had gone to investigate and had taken Tony as backup. Tony had been entering through the back, Gibbs through the front. Only Gibbs hadn’t waited for Tony to be ready. 

He’d just barged in as was his norm. They hadn’t expected Latham, nor the armed presence. Gibbs had been captured and tied up before he’d made it more than a foot in the door. 

Tony hadn’t realized this when he entered. He’d gone slowly, not sure what they were dealing with. He heard Latham order them to kill Gibbs and find his backup. Tony froze. 

Gibbs couldn’t die. He crept even closer. Tony’s world had gone practically white as he watched Latham leave and saw the injuries they’d already inflicted on Gibbs, along with the multitude of guns targeted at Gibbs. 

He heard a gun go off and Tony hadn’t thought, he’d just reacted on instinct and pulled his knife and his gun and had immediately taken out those closest to Gibbs. The others, idiots, had turned to attack him believing Gibbs to be harmless since he was tied up. He’d fought his way to Gibbs despite the overwhelming numbers against them. 

He knew he’d killed some of them in his quest to get to Gibbs, but there had still been a number alive when he finally reached Gibbs’ side. Gibbs had basically freed himself already and the remaining men circled them, confident that they had the upper hand. Tony wasn’t sure what happened after that. 

He and Gibbs fought back to back and had clearly managed to take out everyone, but they’d both sustained injuries in the process. Tony had protected Gibbs as best as he could, but Gibbs had been knocked out when a piece of the ceiling fell on him. Tony had thought him dead and had completely lost all recognition of himself and murdered the rest of them before collapsing from sheer emotional exhaustion combined with his injuries. 

He shouldn’t have woken up. His injuries should have been treated and he should have felt the pain the entire time. Tony still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t felt the pain when he first woke up.

Nor why he didn’t feel it now. Tony was pretty sure he’d sustained at least a concussion during the battle. Also, he’d been grazed at least once and possibly sustained even more injuries.

“You!” Tony glared at Latham.

“Yes, Agent DiNozzo. You made quite a mess of my plans. I never expected you to be able to take out a trained insurgent force basically on your own.”

“So what happens now?”

“Now, Agent DiNozzo. You and Agent Gibbs die before you can ruin my plans even further. Everyone will think you killed yourself from the guilt of killing over 20 men. Combined with the drugs running through your system no one will think anything more of it.”

Tony shook his head. He knew the team would dig deeper than that. However, neither Gibbs nor Tony had any weapons to speak of except possibly for the belt knives. He didn’t see how they were getting out of this and hoped that the anal beads really did have tracking devices in them because otherwise they were completely toast.

“Sacks. Kill them.”

Sacks pointed the gun at Tony’s head first. 

“Ron. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Get lost, Fornell. You don’t understand anything.”

“You’d be surprised. You’re surrounded, Latham. You can either come quietly or we can take you by force.”

Latham made a run for it. He’d chosen this building specifically because it had multiple entrances and exits, some of them hidden and unlikely to be covered. Of course, he’d never really understood the loyalty of the MCRT team. 

Tim and Abby had made sure that all exits were covered and he was captured when he tried to leave. That just left Sacks holding the gun on Tony and Gibbs. “You can stop now, Ron.”

“No. You don’t understand, Fornell. He’ll kill them if I don’t do this.”

“Your family is safe, Ron. I promise. Let DiNozzo and Gibbs go.”


	7. The Consequences

Once Ron had been taken into custody, Ducky and the EMTs rushed to Gibbs and Tony. “You need to go to the hospital. Who knows what injuries you guys have.”

“What happened Ducky? Why all the secrecy?”

“It will be explained in due time, for now we really must see to your injuries. You’ve been given some very strong drugs to allow you to function without feeling the pain, but that’s bound to have done a number on your body. We can’t afford to lose you now.”

Gibbs and Tony were placed in the same room at the hospital. Gibbs had been weaned off the drugs, but Tony’s body reacted unpredictably at best and he was now even loopier than he had been through the entire thing. He knew something was off, but instead of asking about it, he came out with, “Did we really have sex to make our cover, boss?”

“If you think that’s sex, you have a very different definition than I do, DiNozzo.”

“How come you weren’t bothered by sticking your finger up my ass to insert the tracer?”

“I’ve had sex before DiNozzo.”

That didn’t sound right to Tony. He thought Gibbs must be deflecting to avoid telling him something, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around it currently. He slipped into sleep, only for the nightmares to torment him.

These were even worse than the flashbacks he’d been having of killing all those people. Every single time he closed his eyes in that hospital, he saw Gibbs dying in front of him. He saw himself arriving too late to save Gibbs.

Sometimes Gibbs died to a single bullet wound. Other times someone took a katana to his head and sliced right across Gibbs’ neck. Still others Gibbs was murdered by a dagger to the abdomen. 

When he wasn’t dreaming of Gibbs dying, he dreamt of the murders he committed. He dreamt of the ghosts of the people he killed haunting him. The guilt sat heavy on his conscience and he couldn’t forgive himself no matter what the psychiatrist suggested because he knew it was his fault that they were dead.

The doctors tried to give him sedatives, but it only made the nightmares worse because he couldn’t wake from them. When he wasn’t sleeping and suffering from nightmares, he kept replaying the whole thing that had happened in his head. Despite the fact that the team, Fornell, and a bunch of other people had rescued them Tony struggled with who he could trust.

The only one he knew he could trust was Gibbs. He wasn’t even sure he could trust himself. After all, he’d killed over 20 people. 

He became a cop to protect people not kill them. He knew he was developing an unhealthy obsession with Gibbs, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d always been in love with Gibbs even if he hadn’t admitted it or shown it to the world. 

Now, with Gibbs the only one that he was sure was on his side he couldn’t handle Gibbs being out of his sight. Any time Gibbs left even for something as simple as going to the bathroom, Tony would hyperventilate until Gibbs returned. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t stop himself from imagining Gibbs dying every time that Gibbs was no longer in his sight.

The doctors knew something was wrong. They’d tried to wean Tony off the drugs. They’d tried different sedatives. 

Heck they’d tried a bunch of other things given that he’d come in severely dehydrated and with a number of wounds, but none of them helped and most of them made it worse. Tony glared at the IA person who was investigating whether all the deaths were really necessary. He clung to his boss, when the IA agent tried to lead Gibbs out to take his statement. 

Tony knew that Gibbs couldn’t give his statement in front of him, but after everything that happened, letting Gibbs out of his sight wasn’t something that he could handle either. 

“I’ll be fine, DiNozzo.”

Gibbs peeled Tony’s hands off of him and followed the IA agent only for Tony to start screaming as soon as Gibbs was out of his sight. All he could see was Gibbs tied up and bleeding because Tony wasn’t there to back him up. Ducky sighed and gave Tony a sedative so that the IA agent could take Gibbs’ statement. 

They would need to take Tony’s as well at some point, but in light of what happened it would have to wait until he was off all the drugs and a little more stable mentally. This whole thing had clearly affected Tony in ways that no one had expected. By this point everyone had admitted that he had an unnatural dependency on Gibbs to stay calm, but none of the doctors knew how to make it better. 

Ducky was afraid that it would be a long road to recovery for Tony and he might never recover. His psyche had taken a huge hit. Ducky hated that they’d been put through this, but by the time the team figured out what was really going on it had been too late to stop what was already in motion.

At least, they’d been able to give Tony some trinkets so that he knew he wasn’t alone. Ducky was glad that the men had figured out which items had trackers and made sure those were inserted in their bodies. He wished he could do more to help Anthony, but Ducky feared that Gibbs might be the only one able to get through to Anthony now. 

It was months that Tony laid in the hospital. His physical injuries, though severe, had long since healed, but his mental injuries were no where close. The IA agent had tried to take his statement multiple times, but while it was clear Tony knew what had happened nothing came out besides screaming for Gibbs when the IA agent tried to get him to talk.

In fact, Gibbs was the only one able to get a response of any kind from Tony. Everyone else, Tony brushed off with murmurs of gave up on me. Ducky deeply regretted what had happened to young Anthony. 

When the team had first found Tony and Gibbs in the warehouse, they’d both been out cold. They hadn’t been able to wake Gibbs, at the time. Tony had woken up ready to fight, but confused. He hadn’t seemed entirely with it and probably didn’t even remember the team being there. 

Fear had run through Ducky when Tony whispered, “Latham.”

Ducky knew well that ONI was run by Latham. He also knew that Tony had been involved in something suspicious related to ONI. The’d tried to bring DiNozzo and Gibbs back to NCIS headquarters, but Balboa had shown up with orders from Vance that the men be left where they were. 

Ducky hadn’t liked it. Especially not when he was ordered to give them a very heavy dose of painkillers to make sure that they wouldn’t feel any pain for quite some time. Ducky tried to explain that it would wear off eventually, but they didn’t listen. 

Ducky hated it and he’d almost quit NCIS when he found out what the plan was. He’d given them the first dose, but he refused to give them more. He understood that Vance was just trying to get to the bottom of this, but Ducky believed there were better ways that would be less damaging to two people he cared about.

He’d been overridden though. He’d tried to get Abby, McGee, and Bishop to not go along with it, but they’d told him it was the only way to get Latham. If they “rescued” Tony and Gibbs and tried to heal their injuries Latham would realize something was up and would escape.

The only way they’d be able to pull it off was if they played along with it. If they let drugs mask Tony’s injuries and behave like they believed he was the serial killer Sacks insisted he was. Sacks hadn’t been part of the original debacle with Latham, Tony, and Gibbs, but Fornell had noticed odd behavior from him recently. 

While Latham was the mastermind, he had moles in every agency and they’d had to make it seem like they were letting Latham pull their strings and bury Gibbs and Tony in the system or one of them would have gotten suspicious and it would have all been for naught. Tony was paying the price for it now. 

No one was sure why it had affected Tony the way it had, but the psychiatrists insisted that Tony’s mind had completely broken. The only one Tony trusted anymore was Gibbs. 

They were able to piece everything that happened together without Tony’s statement after they found video footage of the warehouse. They still didn’t know what all Latham had planned, but it was something big. 

Latham wasn’t talking. They had enough to put him away for a very long time, but still they wondered what his end goal had been. There had been so many backup plans that it was obvious he’d been planning this for a very long time. 

He’d tried to frame Tony with the thumb drive and when that hadn’t worked he’d tried to have them killed. When that hadn’t worked, he’d decided to make sure they were taken out personally. 

By that time, he’d triggered enough suspicions though that some help was able to be given to Tony and Gibbs. Not a lot or he would have been even more suspicious, but some. It helped that Sacks was absolutely convinced that Tony and Gibbs were in a relationship before this all went down.

Latham had gotten to Sacks early on and Sacks had been passing him his distorted view of information for a long time. That had actually been one of their saving graces. Fornell had figured out that Sacks was one of the moles and had been able to slip Tony more doses of the painkillers without Sacks realizing.

Vance had apologized to Gibbs who was ready to take everyone’s head off when he realized the truth of what had been done and how they’d made DiNozzo bait. He hadn’t gotten much info before being tossed in prison. Only enough to know that they would need to be very careful because something big was going down and they were being set up as pawns.

When the whole story had come out, Vance had been forced into retirement by IA. Fornell had been following the orders of his superiors, so nothing came down directly on him especially as he’d been trying to help Gibbs and Tony as best as he could. A number of FBI upper officials turned in their resignations rather admit to any fault they had in this whole thing.

Tony, though, was the one to suffer the most. He still wasn’t healed mentally. The hospital had finally released him into Gibbs’ care believing Gibbs could help Tony more at home than anything that the hospital could do for him now that his physical injuries were healed. 

Of course, it was mandated that both Tony and Gibbs see a shrink on a regular basis. Tony still had nightmares of Gibbs dying every night despite the psychiatrist’s best effort. IA had finally been able to take Tony’s statement and had been surprised by how much Tony had figured out. 

In fact, they now knew that Latham had sold their country out for pure unadulterated greed. It had started with the information on a few undercover operatives. Then some leaked defensive plans if certain scenarios ever happened. 

Finally, they had convinced Latham to help them get a full insurgent force into the US, so that US could be overthrown and a new ruler crowned. The men Tony and Gibbs killed had been the first wave. 

Latham had already started on a second wave when they arrested him, but fortunately not many of them had actually made it into the US and they were able to round them up easily once Tony was able to give them the information he’d hidden away during the initial EJ op. Unfortunately, the corruption had been so wide spread due to Latham’s reach that Tony no longer trusted anyone other than Gibbs who had been there with him for most of it.

Tony had already written up his resignation and handed it to Vance’s replacement. It hadn’t been approved as they hoped he would come back after he healed, but so far that hadn’t happened. Gibbs continued to give updates about Tony’s progress to the new Director, but he had also turned in his resignation or actually his retirement.

He had no intentions of returning to NCIS until after a thorough cleaning had been done of all governmental agencies. Fornell had done a lot to get back into Gibbs’ graces and was leading the charge to make sure that all corrupt officials were completely removed from the FBI.

It broke Gibbs’ heart to watch Tony scream at night. The only time, Tony slept was if Gibbs was right there next to him and Tony could feel him. Gibbs had taken to sleeping with Tony at night. Only sleeping. 

He wasn’t about to take advantage of Tony in the state Tony was in. He’d loved Tony for a long time and was right there with Tony about how wrong everything had been handled. He couldn’t deny that he was glad Latham was no longer a problem, but he hated what had been done to Tony.

He made sure Tony understood that Gibbs would back whatever play Tony made. Tony was especially fragile right now. It was like all the coping techniques he’d learned as a child no longer worked. 

Gibbs did his best. The psychiatrists too, but no one knew how to help Tony. What seemed to help the most was Gibbs just being there for Tony and helping him get through each day.

They were together practically 24/7 now. If Gibbs worked on his boat, Tony was right there with him or sitting on the steps watching him. Tony was starting to initiate conversations with Gibbs more. 

He considered that progress from the silent Tony, unless he was screaming due to nightmares, that he hadn’t known how to handle. He still didn’t understand how he meant so much to Tony that the idea of Gibbs dying would break him this much, but that was a conversation that would have to wait until after Tony was better able to handle everything that had happened. 

Tony accepted Gibbs’ touch easily and it gave Gibbs hope that they might eventually be able to salvage a relationship out of this, but Tony came first. He wouldn’t even consider propositioning Tony until Tony’s mind seemed fully healed. 

He was pretty sure that the Tony they had known was gone. He only hoped that they could find a new normal without this disaster looming over their heads every day. Tony had always been strong and capable of bouncing back and Gibbs really hoped that he bounced back from this too.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully, I'm back and will be able to keep up posting through end of December, but I've rewritten this story at least 3 times now, so there are still only 6 stories written and ready for posting currently.
> 
> My 2018 Prompt collection is open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2018/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2019. I'm hoping to complete all the 2018 prompts by the end of 2019. Here's hoping muse cooperates.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> I've started a new [poll](https://cutsycat.livejournal.com/55450.html) regarding my series and which ones people most want to see continued in place of the Rapprochement series which I have brought to an end for now... 
> 
> Note: The Bishop Entanglement, Crazy Cat Tale, and Pregnant FBI Agent series will be continued no matter what, so you don't need to vote for those. For those who don't have livejournals just leave a comment with your responses. Thanks!
> 
> Also, I'm looking for some writing buddies. Full details are [here](https://cutsycat.livejournal.com/53610.html). It is friends locked, so you'll have to add me as a friend on lj before you can read it.
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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